The Return of Murasa
by Caribous
Summary: Murasa Minamitsu is on a mission from Shinki, but the ghost-captain girl has an agenda of her own. But then again, so does Shinki's daughter Alice, who's accompanying her. And what is Shinki, herself, really up to? Even Minamitsu's beloved Byakuren's acting suspicious? At any rate, Reimu, Marisa and Gensokyo at large won't know what hit them! [Alice of Makai 02]


**On a Mission For Shinki**

 **Summary:**

Notes: In response to a prompt by plasterbrain in the touhou_meme collection.

 **Prompt:**

Write a story about the greatest character, CAPTAIN MURASA MINAMITSU! Tags: Adventure, Sailing, Awesome, LOTS of Booze

 **This Chapter:**

The return of Alice, Shanghai, Hourai, Medicine, Byakuren and Minamitsu  
to Gensokyo is complicated by a web of hidden agendas and secret plans.

(See the end of the chapter for **notes**.)

* * *

"The Sanzu. The Nijikawa. Cirno's Hot Springs."

The young girl in at the wheel of the magic ship repeated the short list to herself like a mantra. She was a spare figure with very pale skin, short black hair and rather empty teal-colored eyes, wearing a sailor outfit and a blood-red neckerchief. Thanks to Shinki's blessing, as the Palanquin ship traveled from Makai to Gensokyo, Murasa Minamitsu, as she was named, saw the ground as rippling like the ocean, so the motion of the ship, partly submerged in the ground, was what she was familiar with. But only in spots with sufficient water would she have any power of her own.

As an experiment, when she paused in her trip, she had practiced swimming in the ground near the ship. Her ability to create whirlpools and sink people in the ground as she had ships in the water, before being sealed along with Hijiri Byakuren, didn't exist … yet. Nonetheless, she was optimistic. When she and the Palanquin ship had arisen, alongside the flying object fragments, she hadn't even been able to alter the ground at all, just phase through it as a ghost does.

"The Sanzu. The Nijikawa. Cirno's Hot Springs." That would be good enough, if she kept herself aware.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the mansion of an ancient and wise magical being named Shinki, a golden-haired younger girl named Alice was impatient for Minamitsu to return — well, really the ship. She had just discovered some things that felt very good, especially if you were able to make yourself magically more sensitive, and she was eager to share them with the black-white witch who had been hanging around near her old home, inside the cube of frozen time. According to Shinki, Alice and what she thought of as her two sisters, really her daughters — so weird — had lived there in the time before Alice had any memories. For some reason, when Alice made herself feel good, it was mostly the black-white they'd met when she visited Gensokyo that she thought of. Oh, sometimes Yumeko, and sometimes the pretty ghost-captain of the Palanquin Ship, but mostly … Marisa. She'd written it down. It was a good name, she decided. She would also be able to show off seven kinds of magic to … Marisa! She'd asked Shinki, and she said she didn't know of anyone in Gensokyo who was as proficient as Alice in as many colors of magic. So that included that woman whose name she couldn't remember that Alice didn't like for some reason … oh wait, she was the one trying to hog Marisa for herself. Alice had never met her, but when she did, she had no doubt she'd quickly put her in her place. Far away from her witch!

She really wanted to practice making others magically sensitive to things that feel good. Yumeko wouldn't put up with any nonsense from Alice, it probably wouldn't work on Minamitsu even if she could let go of either the tiller or her ladle, even if ghosts even thought of doing something like that. And her two sisters were also out of the question. Shanghai was too innocent, Medicine was too grumpy.

Then again, maybe she wouldn't be so grumpy if … And bearing in mind that Alice, though younger, was in reality Medicine's mother, not her little sister, she could …. Well, no, I suppose the whole project wasn't the kind of thing a mother told her daughter to do. Rats.

She was years away from making her dolls come alive, she was well aware. Worse, she had a pre-grownup suspicion that if she did, she couldn't experiment on them this way because she'd just have more daughters that it would be sinful for her to initiate. One of the few times Shinki had directed Alice, she'd warned her to make her dolls that harmed obviously look like they did, and her realistic dolls quite distinct from them. So she'd never accidentally injure a potential conscious being that would see her as a parental figure.

There weren't all that many other girls her age in Makai, when you got down to it. Gensokyo was filled with girls, on the other hand: girls who smiled (the hot vampire at the Scarlet Devil Mansion and her sister), girls who stared (like that cute librarian), girls who drank fun drinks and behaved in funny ways (the cute oni girl came to mind). It was high time they returned, and where was that ship captain?

* * *

Minamitsu had a mission, this time. It involved two golden apples in a transparent ruby chest (which made them look a bit like mikans to her) She was to deliver them to Kirisame Marisa and Hakurei Reimu. Apparently, they weren't Apples of Immortality, but somewhat close. Shinki wanted her daughter to have a fair chance at being with Marisa. If all three of them could look forward to hundreds of years of ageless life to come, the rationale they suspected she had used for being mostly with Reimu before Alice's death and resurrection would go away. The natural affinity between Alice and Marisa would reassert itself, and Reimu would be the one scrambling to keep Marisa's attention.

Minamitsu had a personal scouting mission as well, however. Her plan was to avenge the defeat of her beloved Byakuren by the Taoist hermit Toyosatomimi no Miko, so this visit, she would determine her whereabouts, habits, and current weaknesses. The next visit was time enough to strike.

Ah, Hijiri Byakuren. Minamitsu's hand left the tiller (though she couldn't let go of the ladle under normal conditions) and she hugged herself. Sweet Byakuren. Whose Buddhist austerity kept her in perfect shape. Whose smile made the sun break through the clouds. Whose grace was like a tree cat. Whose neck was like a swan. Whose snowy breasts rose and fell with her breath like the white caps on Minamitsu's beloved ocean waves. Eventually, when she had defeated Tososatomimi, she would confess formally. Then, together, she and Byakuren would further their path to Enlightenment through Vajrayana, especially the yoga of physical love. Minamitsu couldn't imagine a sweeter, more mystical experience. In fact, the next time Myouren Temple became the Palanquin Ship, instead of gathering herbs in the hills, Byakuren had promised she would accompany Minamitsu to Gensokyo!

For reasons she'd never bothered to ponder, it helped Minamitsu's steering to drink some rum, so she did. The curse of her ladle was that only a few drops at a time reached her lips; the rest poured back into the barrel as she scooped it. But a little patience got a mug's worth of rum in Minamitsu. She had also never pondered how a ghost could drink to begin with. After all, many ghosts survived on human blood, and rum was a much more pleasant beverage.

As she became a little drunk, her hand on the tiller grew steadier, and the ship traveled a little faster. She closed her eyes, and the image of Byakuren's perfect form, unhindered by clothing, was in her mind's eye, like a beacon guiding her forward. Minamitsu shivered, but she smiled as well.

Idly, she wondered if Shinki was correct that she'd need to create a few Incidents to get Hakurei and Kirisame to consider the offer of the apples. Well, Shinki was the wisest being she knew, so Minamitsu planned her attack as she drifted off into a standing half-sleep, suitable for a ghost who was becoming a bit less ghost-like over time.

When the Palanquin Ship arrived in Gensokyo, with something of a lurch, Minamitsu moored it far from the Forest of Magic and the Hakurei Shrine. She floated to where Alice's cottage in the Forest had been. Shinki's blessing and her own ghost nature assisted her. Glowing with a soft green aura, she flowed through the time freeze Shinki had created there into the cottage. It was pretty bare, though there was a pile of sketches of Kirisame Marisa left behind on the table in the main room, certainly the work of Margatroid Arisa. She made her way to Alice's old bed and slept for real. Somehow ,sleeping inside a time-freeze made even a ghost feel refreshed, and the next day she would need all her powers. On the back of one of Alice's sketches, she made a couple of notes on the Incident she'd initiate the conversation with.

* * *

Shanghai and Hourai, who remembered everything, knew their mother would be trouble this time around. Probably their older sister, but definitely their mother. This time around, Grandma Shinki hadn't instilled prim manners and self-restraint in Alice. Hourai told Shanghai she, too, didn't plan on behaving as a Goody Two-shoes when they got back to Gensokyo. Shanghai was shocked, but she and Hourai really had only each other to count on. She knew in the end, she'd go along with Hourai. She made her sister promise to make no moves before Shanghai could analyze their situation. Of the two, she was the planner, Hourai the one who took decisive action the quickest. A lot of people assumed Hourai was inanimate, because Shanghai usually greeted people, and Hourai just served them silently. It was a good time in Hourai's life to change all that. Shanghai was also happy they'd be on the same side as Alice - if Shinki thought she was doing the right thing heading to Gensokyo and running wild, then it was up to her daughters to support Alice. Her last existence, after all, had been mostly tears and self-sacrifice. Shanghai organized her handful of possessions and helped Hourai do the same. Tomorrow, they'd approach their mother and help her plan her return.

* * *

 **Notes:**

 **Issues with this "series" so far:**

Some typos in WM? caused by doing a search-and-replace. I have Byakuren piloting the Palanquin Ship and no mention of Minamitsu. Awkward when Minamitsu is the main character here and Alice is secondary. WM will change on this one. I have child-Alice already mastering all 7 colors of magic, though only at 4 levels of danmaku . So now she has nothing new to show off to Marisa. WM will change on this one. I left Patchouli hanging, and didn't include Hourai and Shanghai from the start, which was the plan. RoM will change on that one. The timeline on WM is confusing, and needs rewriting.

 **Bottom line, WM will change (I will add an extra chapter explaining that) and this chapter will change, and going forward, they'll be in synch.**


End file.
